Constance Singam, the former president of The Association of Women for Action and Research (AWARE) pointed out that she felt character assassination took place with many opposition leaders and called for people to act, in an article shared by Chief of People’s Voice Party, Lim Tean.

In her article, the author and civil society activist wrote that character assassination was used against dissenters and opposition political parties to discredit them and eliminate them from public life, adding that “This is a very successful strategy used by our government and which have been honed in by over 50 years’ of execution”.

According to her, she was reminded of “J B Jeyaratnam, Francis Seow, Chee Soon Juan, and others all of whom paid a heavy price for standing up to the PAP”.

Adding that the constant character assassination that took place caused a “leadership crisis” in Singapore, and called for people to act.

“Singaporeans have a right to be worried and they should worry. But they should act”, she wrote.

In that article, Singam explained that “we do have the power to act and to make a difference [because] all governments, including the PAP government is dependant on the electorate to get elected”.

Equating political character assassination with fake news, Singam opined, “We have to ask ourselves why a powerful government such as this one is so determined to tarnish an individual’s character and destroy his credibility?”

In his Facebook post, Lim Tean agreed with Singam and added, “It’s election season and you can bet that those who are against democracy and freedom will try to destroy their political opponents through character assassination”. /TISG

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